Los Angeles cannot be seen in a day. Let me just tell you that right now. The County itself covers approx. 502.7 square miles of CA and spans between Ventura County to San Bernardino County and Orange County to Kern County. The City, well… I have lived in Los Angeles for approx. 95% of my life and I believe the whole city can be divided into sections within itself. Further, if your main reason is to come to Disneyland and/or Universal Studios that would already take up a day in a half (at least).

Before I provide you with an itinerary; let me break it down for you:

Transportation: If you really want to know Los Angeles and do not want to deal with the lack of transportation system we have, I would recommend the StarLine Hop on and hop off bus. Even that bus separates to 6 routes and each are about 1 ½ to 2 ½ hours long.  Those hours don’t even count how many hours you would actually stay in each area or even the traffic you’ll encounter. You haven’t experienced traffic, unless you experience LA traffic (Of course, Asia and other parts of the world is a different story).

However, I cannot leave out our transportation system. It’s not that the transportation is lacking it’s just LA is just WAY TOO BIG. I don’t blame them; they’re trying their best to accommodate everyone. The MTA has a day pass that covers the bus and train systems for $7. You can check out their fares on their website: http://www.metro.net/riding/fares/

Be reminded that the MTA is not our only transportation system. We have LADOT (Dash), Green Culver City Bus, and the Big Blue Bus (Santa Monica Bus) just to name a few. I’m sure you’ll see them on your journey here – I won’t mention all the other buses as they are in different and outer parts of the city. But those three will be the main transportation systems. Each has their own fares as well, but there is a transfer fee; just ask the bus driver.

Other transportation resources are the Taxi, Uber, and Lyft. All of which are costly that I’d rather recommend you just renting a car. Parking ranges from Free to $30 dollars a day depending where you are and we also have metered parking and residential parking (Just don’t forget to look at the signs). Parking enforcements here are ruthless.

Hotels: You can’t go wrong on where to stay in LA. Everything is so spread out that you need to drive there anyways. I recommend Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, or Downtown LA. If you are the type that wonders in the night and would like food; maybe West Hollywood/Hollywood would be your best bet.

Weather: It’s sunny all year round (Well, currently). Did you ever hear that California is in DROUGHT? You’ll see signs in different cities saying they’re conserving water and that’s why they’re grass are so brown and dying. Of course, they don’t put it that way but they really meant to say that. Hopefully with El Nino coming around, we’ll get some rain but usually it’s sunny and sometimes a little overcast around the beach areas.

I’ll break it down a little further how it usually or what it should be at least (sorry I’m American and don’t use the metric system).

Winter: 55 – 65 degrees Fahrenheit
Spring: 75 – 80 degrees Fahrenheit
Summer: 90 – 100 degrees Fahrenheit
Fall: 75 – 80 degrees Fahrenheit

We still have the seasons but because of global warming the weather are so skewed. Even if in September/October when it’s supposed to be fall it feels like summer! So dress accordingly.

Below is a recommended itinerary to see the most famous places in Los Angeles. It’s pretty much the itinerary I do with my family from Asia. However, if you’ve been to all these places before, you can tweak the itinerary with the other places mentioned in this blog.